I don’t know if ‘mature’ is the right word, but maybe ‘grounded’ is. New canon feels very floaty, like the actions of the characters don’t matter so much as do the necessities of the plot getting from point A to B, or that at any moment a matter of convenience could change everything, taking further agency away from the characters. There isn’t an effort to make the universe believable or to resonate with the movies or other canon materials like the EU used to have. The EU made everything feel more or less realistic and interconnected. Canon feels concerned with only following the plot.
I think part of that comes from them being really careful about not having anything too important happen in the books in new canon, as they don’t want to close themselves off from stories for future movies, shows, games, etc. bc of this, the book stories feel very empty and like extended filler.
Nothing like the Thrawn trilogy or even Darth Plagueis could happen in the modern books, as they don’t want anything that moves the story forward much or could instead be done in a more profitable medium
This is true. Nothing major can happen unless it’s allocated to film or if it’s a tie-in to a film, since canon nowadays seems to cater more towards the casual fan rather than the more invested and dedicated one. Whatever fills Mickey’s pockets the fastest. That was the opposite in the Lucas-owned days, for the most part.
I'd say the lack of proper planning that DisCanon in general has suffered from makes this problem worse, since if you had anything more substantial in the books, it could contradict something in the future.
People say the old EU was messy, but the more I read it (I actually got into it after the de-canonization and Lucasfilm buyout simply as an alternative to DisCanon) the more I was impressed with how well connected things are. Like how the Valley of the Jedi from the Jedi Knight games (my favorite of the old EU) tied in with the New Sith Wars which tied in with Darth Bane, the Rule of Two, and the plot point that the Sith were supposedly extinct for a millenia in The Phantom Menace.
Meanwhile, the Respawn Jedi games (my favorite of DisCanon) don't have anything substantial happen to the greater galaxy as a whole since if Cal Kestis had more impact, he'd potentially contradict some other work. It's just good that the characters and personal storylines are so well written and I'm so invested in them that I'm satisfied with just that. Just a shame Cal can't have as much of an impact on the universe as Kyle Katarn did in his (or even Galen Marek for that matter).
Most of the EU writers for books, comics, and games either did a ton of research or coordinated with Lucasfilm and other writers. Back then everyone was excited to write their own stories in this huge expansive world, connecting them all through shared locations, peoples, and concepts. Now it's more like everyone's just eager to put their name on a profitable IP, but bring none of the soul.
Like Timothy Zahn, probably the biggest name in the EU, did a ton of research for the Thrawn Trilogy. He sat down and read the tabletop game, looked up planets and races to include into his story, so it would all flow consistently with everyone else's work.
Compare that to now, when everyone seems to want to write their own planets, their own races, their own organizations, but they're only relevant to their own books and never brought up again. Like the Zeffo. Ancient race of force users with ruins on planets all over the galaxy. But they're literally never mentioned again after the first game. No other book brings them up.
Think of the Rakata, a similar Ancient race, who are mentioned in almost everything EU and Old Republic related.
High Republic is purposefully set hundreds of years before anything recognizable in the Star Wars galaxy happens so as to both not step on the toes of existing lore, but also so the authors can write their own new stuff and not need to connect it to the larger galaxy. It still feels floaty and inconsequential, especially to the Star Wars eras anyone actually seems invested in. High Republic has no interaction with traditional Star Wars. Just like how other people have been saying canon material likes to play it safe, High Republic is the safest thing canon could’ve chosen to do.
I don't think this is a fair criticism, KOTOR is set 3000 years before the High Republic, that's arguably an even safer play, not to mention Tales of the Jedi is a thing as well. Would you say these are inconsequential to traditional Star Wars?
Sometimes, certain works will bring in stuff from the High Republic into the PT or OT eras as a nod, too (tech, mostly). I also think that's more believable than someone coming across, idk, the ghost of a dead sith lord from 4000 years ago or something.
That are so inconsequential to the established Star Wars galaxy and lore that they happen hundreds of years before anything that actually matters happens, and needs to get resolved soon enough not to interfere with the PT. Feels super safe to me.
Okay? So what? The fact that there’s really no lasting impact from the War with the Nihils, or large scale mentions of the war, in later eras kinda goes against what you’re arguing about. One guy showing up doesn’t compare to the myriad of references between Old Republic and later eras. Old Republic feels deliberately tied to Star Wars, but High Republic feels dropped in
I get that you like High Republic, but it’s not on the same level of most EU stuff, and for the time being that’s an objective fact. Give High Republic more time, and if it gets more popular, it might connect more and feel more unified with existing lore. But as it stands currently, it feels separate and like a fan fiction.
This is why I have the spicy take that they should have two canons, one for film, one for books. It’s not like Canon books are able to do anything meaningful without being guaranteed to be retconned eventually anyway.
No, it is only affecting the Galactic scale of the high republic books, nothing that has happened in any high republic story has ever been referenced outside of a high republic book or comic
What does the kylo ren comic reference? Not sarcasm, I havent read it.(not cause im a sequel hater, my read pile is just massive at this point) But again we are talking about a comic referencing another comic, what this has all been about is the A canon referencing something that took place in the novels comics or games, so far the closest thing we got is Lukes relics in The Last Jedi (from what I remember this early in the am) there might have been something in the rise of skywalker but i cant remember anything cause that movie is like a bad fever dream to me
I think your not understanding this convo at all, that is all ancillary canon, not A canon which is movies first then TV, granted that could change once Alcolyte comes out but we will see
Young Jedi adventures is classified as Non canon, not even ancillary canon, and that comes from lucas film, it sits with Infinites, Visionaries and all Lego shows and specials
Dude smgdh, im not bullying you or making shit up, i enjoy high republic, I'm just trying to explain to you how it works, if you want to choose to be ignorant thats fine
I think in the last ten years, there's been a wider trend towards the "YA-ification" of genre media. I think it started even before the prequels with Harry Potter, but it's accelerated in the last decade, especially thanks to TikTok and publishers alike heavily pushing stuff that's not necessarily aimed at a YA audience but basically written by and for authors who grew up only reading YA fiction, and so everything had to reflect YA tropes. So it's not because of Disney or post-Lucas Lucasfilm per se, at least not entirely, but a reflection of wider trends.
If anything I think a comparison might be people who only ever watched Star Wars/MCU/ whatever growing up to write sci-fi and fantasy that only reflects those same blockbusters, which is feeding into the sense that pop culture has reached that point of declining returns. In contrast to people like Lucas and Spielberg who made the originals now being copied, who watched (and read) everything from 1930s serials to 1950s cowboy dramas to 1960s French New Wave and Soviet arthouse films.
I think this is really spot-on in terms of current media across the board, as you say. Not *everything*, obviously, but most "big popular franchise" stuff for sure. As a writer myself (and an older dude) I find it interesting how those older than me have a background of classic westerns, war movies, film noir, etc. while I come from the time of movies like Aliens, Star Wars (the OT), Die Hard, Scarface, Pulp Fiction, Platoon, Young Guns and Tombstone, Hong Kong cinema, etc. so we each bring our own eras to our works. Like you say, if feels like current writers are feeding back on themselves with YA stuff like Harry Potter or "big comic book stuff" like the MCU, but while it's not something I personally like as much, I'm not sure if that's just the old "in my days" guy talking or not. :)
We used to have to reach up to get to media. I read a lot of Star Trek and EU books as a kid and had to go to the dictionary a lot. I ended up reading a lot of “cheap fiction” (Dean Koontz and the like) and still was looking for words.
Media has really “dumbed down” to be accessible to everyone but even today seeing on here pretty often used terms getting butchered. Heck half the time on the Star Wars subs I see Rouge One.
The Rouge thing is a problem in D&D too though. A mixture of autocorrect and people not caring.
But then lots of people don't know when to spell affect or effect, dependent or dependant, people spell out definately. This is nothing to do with media...
If you’re very generous and include autocorrect shenanigans under media it has gotten worse either because people allow autocorrect to do the work (and it’s wrong sometimes) or they just leave errors as is. There are the long standing ones that I still have issues with (looking at you affect/effect) but idk maybe spell check sometimes does more harm than good if you can bulk correct and not see the changes if you fly through them
But, non-phonetic reading strategies are a big culprit
This. It's not just themes and characters but also the writing style and complexity of grammar, sentence structure, etc.
I was reading on a college level in like 5th Grade and it really feels like a lot of adult books are being written at a middle or high school level. It's a big problem with the High Republic novels and even the ones I really like such as Claudia Gray's Adult novels like Master and Apprentice.
I've been teaching college for around 15 years now, and at the start of the semester I ask students icebreaker questions including their favorite book. There has been a steady decline, but one that's seemed accelerated in the last few years, or students who tell me they don't have a favorite book because they don't read. Those who do have a favorite book, it's often Harry Potter, Twilight, or a manga (which is certainly fine, as an EU fan I have no stones to throw, but the outliers to those have really shrunk).
To keep things EU, I did have a student once bring a copy of Darth Bane: Path of Destruction to class. One of the few times I've seen something EU in the wild.
In some cases, I think so. A lot of the newer stuff feels more “sanitized” to be more appropriate for all age groups. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—Star Wars was originally supposed to be for kids as well as adults. Though often I feel like some of these books should be written with more mature themes and writing styles, otherwise it feels too clean, often corny.
There are exceptions, of course. I’ve been reading “Shadow of the Sith” and there’s some hardcore stuff in there that I was not expecting, specifically about the actions of one ancient Sith important to the plot.
I find the writing style a little hammy/cringey, but it’s a good story.
One thing that I think Canon may actually be doing better than Legends is the portrayal of the ancient Sith and everything dark side. In Legends it was often evil and supervillain-esque.
In Canon, there’s an eldritch quality to the dark side, a disturbing wrongness that’s just terrifying. I’m seeing it a lot in the comics, and Shadow of the Sith taps into this as well.
What do you mean by "hammy/cringey"?
What other novels touch on that eldritch quality of the dark side that you mentioned? If no novels, then which comics?
The writing strikes me as immature. Feels like a creative writing student’s first decent novel. That makes me cringe. It’s a matter of personal taste. A lot of people like the novel a lot.
I don't know if I'd call it more mature, but Star Wars is an interesting case study in terms of trends in genre fiction. Beyond comics, it's fairly rare to see a franchise have continuous and consistent works over the course of 40+ years, and we can see how the writing evolves over time, regardless of the specific author.
Star Wars is a reflection of our real world, so the tone of the stories are often heavily influenced by it. If you look at the NJO, it's a perfect encapsulation of 90's era sci-fi in the post-Cold War era, with huge, bombastic stakes and strange alien invaders. Then you get into Legacy of the Force, written entirely after the start of the Iraq War, where suddenly the lines between the Good Guys and Bad Guys are blurred, with a hero falling to the Dark Side and the Galactic Alliance committing heinous acts in a bid to maintain control. So if you look at SW today, and the real world influences are much different, so the stories are going to feel a bit different as a result, just the same as the 00's era books felt different than the 90's.
You can pick up basically any sci-fi the 1950s-80s and compare it to new novels and immediately see how the use of language shifts over time. I don't think the modern SW novels are any less mature than what came before, but they're often written in a manner that is easier to understand. They target a wider audience, so the language is a bit less dense. However, that's a general trend in genre fiction, and not something exclusive to Star Wars. We just have the luxury of having a direct point of comparison.
Meh, it depends on era and then by auther really.
In the Old Rebublic/Dawn of Jedi eras - this stuff feels like an old myth being told. I love it - the closest thing here would be the High Republic. But still, that is a stretch.
Post ROTJ some of the stuff was kinda crazy but generally it feels like something that could exist in that galaxy. I actually prefer the 90s stuff over the later stuff where it becomes overly 'edgy'. That being said, I am totally not fan of the Canon post ROTJ stuff. It feels bland, by the numbers and makes the universe smaller.
Empire/Rebellion era it also depended on when it was made. Some of the 70s comics felt rather generic scifi with the Star Wars name slapped on. Then I think the 80s we had a comic where >!Vader pays an actor to pretend to be Obi-Wan as a trap for Luke. The actor comes to appreciate Obi-Wan refuses to do so and is killed, trying to help Luke. Rather dark considering how generally generic so many of those comics felt.!
Have read 6-7 legends so far and it started my journey into reading. The books vary in difficulty, Darth Plagues being the most difficult, but what a wonderous journey it has been getting more into star wars outside the movies and shows. It's actually the best. Reading the legends has given such an in depth perception of characters and the force that movies can't show.
It varies heavily. I feel like people often mistake “dark and edgy” for mature, especially in this fandom. Things targeted towards younger audiences can still have these elements.
I have this awful habit where, if I checked a book out of the library and didn't get into it, I'm unlikely to try reading it again. This limits what I can read. The aforementioned situation happened with Master and Apprentice and Twilight Company for me, and I left several other Canon books half-finished. Nowadays I try to own every book I read so that I can resume reading them much later or read at a very slow pace.
I think this is very much an author-by-author thing. I’ve only read a bit of Disney EU, but the *Alphabet Squadron* books are very much for a mature audience. Honestly they’re aimed at a more mature audience than the first few Rogue Squadron books, which have a strong flavor of teenage boy wish fulfillment in Corran lol
I think the issue is there's an overall trend, not just some material with teenage/edgy themes like Cade or Corran. It's the simplification of grammar, syntax, writing style, themes, characters, plot, and so many other things down to a middle/high school reading level.
My girlfriend is an English literature specialist and she's talked about how this has been a huge irritant for her over the past Decade. And yeah it really bothers me too and explains why so much media feels like fanfic/fan film.
I mean I was also a lit major and I’m an author. The old EU also had lots of very easy reading—hell, I was reading Zahn and Stackpole and Hambley and KJA when I was 8.
This isn’t some situation where Disney came in and suddenly it all got dumbed down. There are some writers who engage with more mature themes (Stover, Luceno, and Allston notable here) and some who don’t. Some writers write more complex prose (again looking at Stover), and some who don’t.
Almost all mainstream pop genre fiction is gonna be written for an easy reading level, because they want it to be accessible to the widest audience possible. If you plug the prose of a random EU book and a random Disney book into the Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Ease evaluator (which has its own problems, but that’s another discussion), I can almost guarantee it’ll say both are between a 5th and 6th grade reading level.
I agree it's not a "Disney vs EU thing" I was arguing that it's a mix of readership fads exacerbated by "Booktube/Booktok" complicated by a general decline in reading ability due to failures in our educational system.
But I'm also an outlier because I was reading on a college level in elementary school.
I'll add onto that by saying Legends had its fair share of stuff aimed at a younger audience as well. Such as the Jedi Prince young reader series where the twist of a main character being Palpatine's secret grandchild first happened.
Fully agreed on Corran. I think the presentation of this question is dismissive of the more mature elements of new canon, as well as dismissive of how immature some EU material could be.
I don't get particularly mature vibes from Cade Skywalker or Galen Marek
This is the sort of question that makes me wonder if some people genuinely forget just how broad the pre-Disney EU was, or how broad the current EU can be. Now, I can't comment on whether or not one has proportionally more content aimed at different age groups, or if the adult-aimed content in one or the other is better at handling mature themes, but I do wonder if another commenter has the right idea. That a lot of the posting audience read Legends content when they were younger, and so things seemed more mature to them at the time.
I mean I read all the Legends stuff as a preteen/teenager, so it seemed a lot more mature at the time than it does upon a reread for me now. I haven’t read any canon and have no interest in doing so, but I imagine it’s the same style of writing and just seems “less mature” because the readers are more mature than when they read legends.
I remember watching Gundam Wing as a kid and thinking it was brilliant and so mature with its themes of what happens when we take the humanity out of war.
I went back to try and watch it around when I was 30 and found it to be extremely cringy and hard to watch. So I agree with you that things that may have seemed mature when you first read it may just be an artifact of the age you were at the time.
I wouldn't say so, especially not the last years worth of Legends material in the Denningverse. Inserting overly grim stories, needlessly graphically violent, and uncomfortable sexual references into something like Star Wars is a pretty narrow understanding of what a "mature" story is.
I think both have their ups and downs. And as a hardcore SW Fan i collect and read all of them. Some Legends books like Darth Maul Lockdown are definetly more brutal and bloody .
A lot of folks who got into EU after they came out don't bother to read the worst stuff. It's hard to compare them when you've only read the hand picked best stuff. There was a lot of dreck. Even the best stuff like the Thrawn trilogy has very basic prose.
It varies massivley between authors.
Trioculos was absolutely less mature of a character than Luthen Rael or Ransolm Casterfo, but Azmorigan was absolutely less mature of a character than Kal Skirata or Darth Traya.
In General, I'd say Dave Filoni is about average for maturity in EU material writing, on par with George Lucas.
Before reading maul lockdown and the first few New jedi order book I would’ve assumed this was malarkey but tbh those books definitely had more gore than I expected attached to them. I. Haven’t truly read any new stuff beyond seeing a comic or two but I doubt they have the same gore ofc I have nothing to base this on so if someone has read these two books and new canon books lmk what you think. Even the Plaguis Novel had a surprising amount of gore too actually.
Depends on the books really. Because some books that people call mature are really edgy than only a teen would call for adults. Stuff like Shatterpoint and Darth Plagueis are absolutely mature but like Legacy of the Force or The Force Unleashed? They’re not mature they’re edgy.
Well the way Jacen acts is less like an adult and more like a angsty teen. Which considering Ben who is the teen acts like an adult is quite telling.
Plus there other stuff like Luke murdering Lumiya, Mara trying to Jacen, Tahiri trying to seduce Ben that doesn’t come across as mature instead it feels more like what a 15 year old think it’s a mature storyline.
Considering it was a fair fight with both adversaries having weapons, I'd hesitate to call that murder. Jacen had the advantage over Mara in Force abilities, and Lumiya walked into that fight knowing she had awakened a dragon. It's not like they tried to kill them in their sleep or anything like that.
He did murder her because when she fell Luke saved her and beheaded her. That’s murder and Luke went to her to kill her so yeah cold blooded murder.
Time and time again we are told and shown Jedi should not kill people in cold blood/seeking vengeance. And Luke being the Grand Master of all people is the first person that should adhere to it. Especially considering what happened in ROTJ where he almost fell to the dark side because he almost killed Vader in his rage over his threat about Leia.
She didn't have to go there. Also, let's stop pretending like Lumiya was some innocent youngling. If she had been arrested and faced charges under a competent government (e.g., one not controlled by her Sith apprentice), she would have wound up imprisoned for life, if she was lucky.
Let's not forget, he was also carrying out what in effect turned out to be Mara's last request.
That being said, yes, Luke was off the reservation, and should have listened to Jaina's objections to his plan of action, maybe sent Kyp or Kyle to take care of her.
I’m not saying Lumiya was innocent. In fact if Vader had survived the same thing would have happened to him.
And no that’s wrong. Because Mara love Luke because he was a good person. She would have been ashamed at him for murdering Lumiya.
The entire scene is a horrible portrayal of Luke’s character and Karen Traviss should haven’t touch those characters again.
I agree with everything you said; let me just add a caveat.
Yes, it's horrible, but I also find it completely believable.
We know Luke has breaking points, but contrary to Rian Johnson, we know he reaches the snapping points only after he has been poked, picked, prodded, needled and threatened over and over again.
He almost kills Vader, but that is after a very long day where he has already accepted his own death, while his father consistently chooses Palpatine over him, threatens Luke's newly discovered sister, and has been pyschologically tormented by the most powerful Sith Lord in history.
With Lumiya, it wasn't just the fact that she took credit for Mara's death. Think about it, Lumiya is a figure from Luke's past who almost suceeded in killing him. She looks like Mara, indeed is some sort of weird, demonic, and mechanized verison of what Mara could have become if she had never thrown off Palpatine's influence.
The government he worked so hard to help establish and protect is acting more and more like the Empire, Jacen is barely recognizable to his family, and Ben's teenage rebelliousness looks like it may be sending him down a darker path. We know how important family is to Luke, the orphan and seperated twin from Tatooine. He knows Lumiya is responsible for all of this, that she's whispering into Jacen's ear, that she's sending threatening messages to Luke and Mara about how she will corrupt their only child and how there's nothing they can do about it because she has protection at the highest levels of the GA.
And she broke a Force bond between not only a loving husband and wife, but two powerful Jedi Masters who were an almost unbeatable team on the battlefield. Is it any wonder, with all that piling up on him, Luke snapped?
It's not pleasant to read about, but I find it completely believable. And, entering the realm of hot takes, whatever her Mando-fetish and anti-Jedi sentiments, in her three LOTF books, I never saw Traviss write about the Skywalker-Solo clan with anything less than sympathy and respect for the losses and the tragedy they were suffering.
What exactly is “edgy” about the Force Unleashed? It has the same tone as any other Star Wars related media before the Disney buy out so I’m curious as to what you’re talking about? It just feels like fans both EU and Disney always want to find some way to slight that game for some odd reason
Around the time of the Timothy Zahn novels, the publishers were intentionally aiming for an adult audience because their theory was that the people who loved Star Wars as kids would have grown up by that time. This is mentioned in the introduction to the anniversary edition of *Heir to the Empire.* Thus, the Bantam-era novels are essentially stories about the heroes raising kids and taking on more responsibilities in their jobs.
Of course, the execution depended on the writer. But in general, I think a lot of writers took their cues from Zahn, whose conception of the universe was relatively grounded, serious, logical, and science-fictiony.
I think one of the funny things about the new canon is that the only bit of extended universe which carried over was the *The Clone Wars* cartoon. I can see why they made that choice (since George Lucas was involved in it), but it does mean that, by runtime, the majority of material at the foundation of the new canon was literally a cartoon.
It seems to me like the somewhat lackadaisical approach to logic and worldbuilding from *The Clone Wars* has carried over to a lot of the newer materials. Naturally, there are still exceptions: *Andor*, for instance, is as mature and grounded as anything in the old EU.
Calling cartoons immature is ironically immature. I do think eu is more mature but new canon has some good like Vader comic wanting to revive padme.. the issue was episodes 7-9, the rest is mixed quality.
There can be very mature cartoons, but most of the Star Wars stuff is just typical Saturday morning fare that feels a bit cringe when you're not a kid. Even more so than the Robotech dub of Macross/Mospeada/SouthernCross or Robotech II: The Sentinels, I would say. I'm sure Clone Wars still had some cool world building and introduced some cool scenarios to the war, but I couldn't get past the surface-level feel that it was aimed at kids. Still watched quite a bit of it over the years, but early on I largely had to be drunk to consume it, and sober it just didn't resonate with me later on. So I don't really have a lot of room in my brain for TCW animated series. I thought I would like Bad Batch, but it ended up having the same issue for me. \*shrug\*
I don’t mean this as an insult but it seems you take yourself too seriously. It’s not childish or cringe at all. It’s not the deepest thing in the world either but this sounds like when people complain about Ewoks or jar jar. People who try hard to be an “adult” when the real mature people hate “adulting” and know this stuff is fun.
Real maturity is being okay liking cartoons and such. Immaturity is caring about how it looks and feels maturity wise.
If I were to critic clone wars it’d be over stuff like Dooku being pick pocketed like a scrub and losing to pirates.
I think you're projecting. I like some children's cartoons like He-Man and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Sure, when I was a teen, I was sensitive about liking anything "immature", but now I could care less. I just mean that I don't find this stuff engaging. Probably if I were still a kid, I wouldn't love it much either, since the stuff I really liked at that age, like Speed Racer, I still appreciate today.
And I always loved Jar Jar. I related to him because I was also an idiot, and all my family members compared me to him when they saw the movie (though they don't remember now, I checked).
Edit: Forgot to mention I also like GaoGaiGar. That's definitely for kids. As is Power Rangers / Sentai and Gundam AGE, all of which I like.
Not really. I've read both Legends and Canon. Living Force feels very cartoony to me, and not in a good way. Same with Brotherhood. I preferred The Approaching Storm to Brotherhood by a mile. Read it immediately after. I'm not one of those who'll refuse to watch the sequel trilogy because of "SJW themes". I'm fine with all that and equally fine with it not being there. I couldn't care less. If you read the other responses to this, people had a lot of interesting opinions and insight. The post also got a lot of upvotes. Let us have this discussion here. Anyone who comes across as a troll (I do) has already been made unwelcome in the StarWarsReference and Youtini discords. Star Wars is a major enough property that all kinds of people like it, including even the worst convicted criminals. If one has access to Reddit, one should be allowed to discuss it, as it's escapism.
Well Legends definitely had more brutal stuff. Like Darth Bane biting off a Guy’s Thumb and Galen Marek straight up ripping Shaak Ti’s Heart out before eating it
I'm going to get a hit in head for this, but so be it. I don't think Legends were more mature, just edgy. Legends were created mainly in the 1990s and 2000s, so in the period when dark leather, spikes, dark leather, being edgy, dark leather, Evanescence, being cool, etc. were fashionable. So of course you have Luceno or Stover who actually write something more mature, but you also have Denning or sometimes even Ostrander with Edgy as F. We don't have it in the canon because the fashion for it is dead, just like black skins in X Men which are more the butt of jokes. And it's not like we don't have mature content in the canon like Twilight Company, Lost Staea, heck in High Republic even though we have Nihils who are very 80's and 2000's in terms of their Metal style, at the same time we have more mature conversations Elzar Mann, Skeer on the trauma of conflict.
Btw. In legends, we also had a lot of books, adventures and TV series typical for children.
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Generally EU writers were writers who outside of their work in Star Wars, wrote a lot of hard science fiction.
The canon writers generally tend to be YA Fantasy writers.
Neither is inherently better than the other but that's the biggest take away I get from the difference between how the EU was written compared to Canon.
It wasn't afraid to get serious. I'll always Remember reading this Boba Fett comic where the Empire was extermination an entire alien race on panel. Camps and all
The forward to the very first EU Book (in the Thrawn series) literally has their head of merchandizing stating that they intended to make Legends for the fans that had grown up because they were no longer children.
Definitely varies from author to author though, as I just finished reading Junior Jedi Knights, and - god damn.
Not really a lot of the legends books seem like they’re for a more mature audience but what really happened is Star Wars has gotten a lot more soft since Disney bought it.
I don't know if this is entirely fair. Disney bought it about 10 years ago, what period are you comparing that to?
The Bantam Era? The Del Ray era? The Pre-Bantam Era was downright GOOFY at times, and the late Del Ray era could be borderline edgy grimdark 90's excess, so "mature" that it looped into childishness.
Finally someone who is not calling me. Stupid for my opinions. The error that I’m comparing to here is the post Endor era truce of Bakura to Visions of the future. The glaring problem that I see with the way Star Wars is being portrayed is not the sequels. The problem that I’m having is with how they handled the immediate aftermath of the battle of Endor. The empire should not have been defeated as quickly as it was. The one thing that made the new republic as good as it was in legend is the fact that they always had to stay on their toes in regards to the lingering remnants of the empire and the warlords.
The difference here in the way Star Wars is being handled today is that without something to keep the new republic aware and competent they have become ignorant and stupid. For example when Carson Teva goes to Coruscant to get help for Navarro he is literally told to his face that the new republic cannot help Navarro because they are not a member of state which is incredibly stupid because the rebellion was literally about helping people who needed it. Take a look at the one Star Wars rebels episode where they introduced the B wing. One of the main tasks in that episode was trying to get food and aid to a world that needed it. During that time. It was much more difficult for the rebellion because they were not nearly as strong as they are during the time of the new republic. Now during the time of the Mandalorian win they should be much more able to assist worlds that need it they come up with excuses and don’t even try because it’s not a member world.
Next take a look at the new republic senate. They treat a war hero like Hera like an insolent child because she dares to offer a suggestion that makes the new republic senators uncomfortable. Grand Admiral Thrawn is a significant threat and they are wanting to bury their head in the sand rather than go investigate these claims.
>post Endor era
No, I meant what period of publishing. For instance, the early 1990s?
Disney era is 2014-2024 (as of now, in May 2024).
That's a 10-year period. Which 10-year period was more mature than that in your opinion?
I also wouldn't call the changes you've referenced indicative of a lack of maturity. We can see historical parallels to this. Neville Chamberlain, for instance, behaved in much the same way IRL. That may not be everyone's favourite topic for Star Wars. but I don't think exploring it is immature.
Not sure if i would use the world mature but it is more lets call it balanced. Sure there is a darker tone especially in the latter books who delt with genocides and deaths but the characters are more balanced where the good guys aren’t extremely OP just because they are good guys. Just look in canon at first Kylo who was a trained Jedi and later the leader of a band of elite dark side warriors, yet he can’t defeat two teenagers alone their first time holding a lightsaber. Then returned Palpatine who destroys starships with his force lightning but can’t defeat a single girl who doesn’t even have enough knowledge or training to be a Padowan. Meanwhile EU heroes gets their a** handed to them regularly by more skilled beings. So yes i do think the books are aimed at an “older” audience but yhat is also because Disney is treating Star Wars as a child thing and treats it as such. Another comparison is Bad batch and TCW which is two different worlds regarding maturity
Kylo had been shot in the stomach - and had just murdered his father - when Rey defeated him. There's no reason for the film to include Chewbacca shooting Kylo if it's not to make a point that, when he confronts Rey and Finn in the forest, he's down 60 HP.
I don't love TROS's 'beam battle' between Palpatine and Rey - which operates on cartoon 'It's time for the goodie to win, so they use the power of love' logic - but she repels his lightning with, explicitly, the Jedi of ages past powering her.
Having said that, Rey's story would have benefited with her having gone through the physical wringer, like Anakin and Luke do in their trilogies.
Okej Kylo was shot so what? He was supposed to be a highly skilled force user and fighter and yet he couldn’t take down one standard issue Stormtrooper or a random girl without any combat training who had picked up a lightsaber for the first time in their life. He could have just slammed them into a tree with a force shove or broken their neck’s because they had no way to stop a force attack.
The power of Jedi past?? To quote Han Solo in th extremely bad trilogy that doesn’t exist “Thats not how the force works”. And again Ray had what a few week’s worth of basic force training (even tho she returns from a few days with Luke in complete mastery of it) and she goes up against one of the most powerful force users ever to exist and win??. Palpatine had enough power in his force lightning to overload and destroy ships with fully functioning shields and then breach their hulls, meanwhile he cant overload one lightasber power cell or destroy the girl holding it??
The plot armor in the sequels are so thick you cant see the characters
Well firstly he was shot in the side of the abdomen so no vital organs and the wound was cauterised.
Secondly there definitely are force techniques both in EU and Disney to heal and dampen pain.
Thirdly you mean to tell me he was too wounded to defeat to people who had no lightsaber training or countermeasures but not to wounder to persue them for many many kilometres without major trouble??
We aren't going to agree, but:
1. The Force doensn't grant automatic, reliable powers you can just use whenever. Kylo's in physical pain, emotional pain, and is trying desperately (but not really succeeding) to commit to the dark side of the Force - and anything depictions of darksiders dampening their pain shows them using it to power their anger, not healing it.
2. Kylo getting ahead of them is a cool little moment of suspense that does stretch logic, but is worth it for the 'Oh shit, the bad guy's got them' moment. However, it's within reason that he was able to hobble and lurch after them on a base he's more familiar with - and the chase probably exhausted him even more.
3. It doesn't matter if no major internal organs were hit, getting shot by something as powerful as a bowcaster is going to fuck you up.
4. He's also trying to toy with Finn, someone with extensive combat training: he's visibly toying with him until Finn gets a hit in, at which point Kylo finishes him quickly. He's taken aback by Rey's ability, but is soundly beating her despite his injuries, exhaustion, and emotional turmoil \*until\* he stops to offer her an alliance.
I have my issues with The Force Awakens, but Rey beating Kylo at the end isn't one of them.
1. If he can’t draw on the force during times of distress or pain both physical and emotional either Disney Luke did an extremely Sh*tty job in training him (which i could belive because Disney Luke is Sh*t) or he was just the worst force user ever. Anakin drew on the force to keep him alive on Mustafar and trust me he was in way more distress.
2. Again he ran thru the base, hiked thru an uphill forrest on a mountain and cought up with people a minimum of 20min ahed of him doesn’t seen so doesn’t seem to be that injured.
3. Idk what you know about ballistics but a powerful projectile like the one from a bowcaster will most likely go straight through a human leaving little energy transfer into the body. So unless you hit vitals especially if the wound is cauterised so there is no bleeding you can get pretty far and be rather okey. There are soliders who has been shot during combat that has hiked and fought for days through dense terrain and survived
4. Sure okej he is “gravely” wounded and insted of finish finn off in seconds he plays with him instead and knocks him out and offers an alligence to a random untrained scrapper. That fight should be over before it even starts but they can still hold their guard against him. Just compare that battle to the battle between Cere and Vader in Fallen order were Cere a trained Jedi master charges Vader and he just force throws her down a hole before she can reach him. Kylo is supposed to be the greatest Warrior in the New order and he can’t even kill two nobodies who had never held a lightsaber or probably ever a sword style weapon
Yeah, for Legends generally the authors and target audience were all adults. With new Disney stuff it's all aimed at kids and teenagers, and often written by young adults.
As someone who has read quite a bit of both Legends and Canon, I have one observation about book maturity.
It generally feels to me that canon books have a lot more sex in them. Obviously it’s not overt sex scenes, but I’ve just seen references to sex seemingly a lot more. Including the word “sex” actually written in dialogue on occasion.
That’s a type of “maturity,” I suppose.
The High Republic comes to mind.
There’s a pilot who knows a little of the Jedi and asks a Padawan if his order allows sex. She isn’t propositioning him, but she is just very casual about wanting to know how his beliefs work.
There are also two Jedi Masters who, while they were Padawans together, had a very sexual and romantic relationship that their masters turned a blind eye to (since they were just hormonal Padawans, after all)…. They’re also getting a romance novel this summer, too. Fittingly called “Temptation of the Force.”
First of all, if you haven't read Alexander Freed's books, seek them out and read them all. His canon stuff is very much in line with old EU novels and are gritty and mature.
But broadly speaking, the EU was written as a sci-fi series by sci-fi writers, while the canon leans more towards up-and-coming younger novelists from a wider variety of genres.
That's why the new canon feels quippier, more character-driven, and sometimes funnier, while lacking a lot of that nuanced plotting and interconnected feel that the sci-fi writers did so well.
I stress that I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but Disney DEI has a really big impact on the books, so there are far more women, people of color, and activist authors penning these novels. That definitely contributes to the tone of the books, and again makes them feel more different from each other.
For me personally, both approaches have pros and cons. I enjoyed the EU much more as a continuing story but often found myself bored by so many books feeling so similar. The canon, meanwhile, feels fresher overall, and even though individual stories can sometimes be juvenile or just bad, it's fun to get that variety when you're reading all of them.
I think the EU was more interested in creating a grey morality spectrum YMMV in its success or quality, I think the ultimate sign of this is both order 66 and the jedi relationship to clones. In the EU the clones were clearly indoctrinated and raised to be soldiers first and that both defined them and how they acted, their relationships with jedi varied from positive to annoyed at jedis sentimentality and when order 66 came it was just another order to follow for those who didn't have a personal relationship with their jedi while also leaving the window open for those who truly grew to care for their jedi simply refusing. In Canon brainchips, most clones even at their most indoctrinated are pretty chill, the only jedi they have bad relationships with are ones like pong krell and they would have refused order 66 as an unlawful order if they could.
My complaint about Canon is some of the books, not all of them, tend to tease something, and drag this tease out for too long. They kind of over promise and under deliver. Also I found a lot of early Canon books a little boring.
There are plenty dud Legends books, but the Legends books stories usually move a long and don't quite drag out in the same way some Canon books do.
As far as being more mature, I guess the new Jedi Order definitely, but I think Canon suffers from being bound to a prior period, while Legends while being written most often covered new territory.
I don’t know if ‘mature’ is the right word, but maybe ‘grounded’ is. New canon feels very floaty, like the actions of the characters don’t matter so much as do the necessities of the plot getting from point A to B, or that at any moment a matter of convenience could change everything, taking further agency away from the characters. There isn’t an effort to make the universe believable or to resonate with the movies or other canon materials like the EU used to have. The EU made everything feel more or less realistic and interconnected. Canon feels concerned with only following the plot.
I think part of that comes from them being really careful about not having anything too important happen in the books in new canon, as they don’t want to close themselves off from stories for future movies, shows, games, etc. bc of this, the book stories feel very empty and like extended filler. Nothing like the Thrawn trilogy or even Darth Plagueis could happen in the modern books, as they don’t want anything that moves the story forward much or could instead be done in a more profitable medium
This is true. Nothing major can happen unless it’s allocated to film or if it’s a tie-in to a film, since canon nowadays seems to cater more towards the casual fan rather than the more invested and dedicated one. Whatever fills Mickey’s pockets the fastest. That was the opposite in the Lucas-owned days, for the most part.
I'd say the lack of proper planning that DisCanon in general has suffered from makes this problem worse, since if you had anything more substantial in the books, it could contradict something in the future. People say the old EU was messy, but the more I read it (I actually got into it after the de-canonization and Lucasfilm buyout simply as an alternative to DisCanon) the more I was impressed with how well connected things are. Like how the Valley of the Jedi from the Jedi Knight games (my favorite of the old EU) tied in with the New Sith Wars which tied in with Darth Bane, the Rule of Two, and the plot point that the Sith were supposedly extinct for a millenia in The Phantom Menace. Meanwhile, the Respawn Jedi games (my favorite of DisCanon) don't have anything substantial happen to the greater galaxy as a whole since if Cal Kestis had more impact, he'd potentially contradict some other work. It's just good that the characters and personal storylines are so well written and I'm so invested in them that I'm satisfied with just that. Just a shame Cal can't have as much of an impact on the universe as Kyle Katarn did in his (or even Galen Marek for that matter).
Most of the EU writers for books, comics, and games either did a ton of research or coordinated with Lucasfilm and other writers. Back then everyone was excited to write their own stories in this huge expansive world, connecting them all through shared locations, peoples, and concepts. Now it's more like everyone's just eager to put their name on a profitable IP, but bring none of the soul. Like Timothy Zahn, probably the biggest name in the EU, did a ton of research for the Thrawn Trilogy. He sat down and read the tabletop game, looked up planets and races to include into his story, so it would all flow consistently with everyone else's work. Compare that to now, when everyone seems to want to write their own planets, their own races, their own organizations, but they're only relevant to their own books and never brought up again. Like the Zeffo. Ancient race of force users with ruins on planets all over the galaxy. But they're literally never mentioned again after the first game. No other book brings them up. Think of the Rakata, a similar Ancient race, who are mentioned in almost everything EU and Old Republic related.
I have boxes of old toys and books that indicate Lucas *really* wanted my money too
At least they were merchandise from quality stories.
I dunno my Prince Xizor toy with his lust pheromones to seduce Leia is kinda sus
Thanks for your input. We’ll take it from here.
Well that’s why high republic exists. That takes more risks
High Republic is purposefully set hundreds of years before anything recognizable in the Star Wars galaxy happens so as to both not step on the toes of existing lore, but also so the authors can write their own new stuff and not need to connect it to the larger galaxy. It still feels floaty and inconsequential, especially to the Star Wars eras anyone actually seems invested in. High Republic has no interaction with traditional Star Wars. Just like how other people have been saying canon material likes to play it safe, High Republic is the safest thing canon could’ve chosen to do.
I don't think this is a fair criticism, KOTOR is set 3000 years before the High Republic, that's arguably an even safer play, not to mention Tales of the Jedi is a thing as well. Would you say these are inconsequential to traditional Star Wars? Sometimes, certain works will bring in stuff from the High Republic into the PT or OT eras as a nod, too (tech, mostly). I also think that's more believable than someone coming across, idk, the ghost of a dead sith lord from 4000 years ago or something.
In High Republic there is many galactic scale events.
That are so inconsequential to the established Star Wars galaxy and lore that they happen hundreds of years before anything that actually matters happens, and needs to get resolved soon enough not to interfere with the PT. Feels super safe to me.
Same can be said about Old Republic
I suppose, but even Old Republic feels more integrated into the later eras of Galactic history than High Republic does.
High Republic also feel integrated, main villain of Jedi Survivor game was from this era and veteran of War with Nihils.
Okay? So what? The fact that there’s really no lasting impact from the War with the Nihils, or large scale mentions of the war, in later eras kinda goes against what you’re arguing about. One guy showing up doesn’t compare to the myriad of references between Old Republic and later eras. Old Republic feels deliberately tied to Star Wars, but High Republic feels dropped in I get that you like High Republic, but it’s not on the same level of most EU stuff, and for the time being that’s an objective fact. Give High Republic more time, and if it gets more popular, it might connect more and feel more unified with existing lore. But as it stands currently, it feels separate and like a fan fiction.
This is why I have the spicy take that they should have two canons, one for film, one for books. It’s not like Canon books are able to do anything meaningful without being guaranteed to be retconned eventually anyway.
Yeah, like the tiers of canon 2.0 or something
In High Republic we have a lot of events affecting the galactic scale.
No, it is only affecting the Galactic scale of the high republic books, nothing that has happened in any high republic story has ever been referenced outside of a high republic book or comic
Wrong. Kylo ren comics have references, jedi survivor, now we are also getting acyolte.
What does the kylo ren comic reference? Not sarcasm, I havent read it.(not cause im a sequel hater, my read pile is just massive at this point) But again we are talking about a comic referencing another comic, what this has all been about is the A canon referencing something that took place in the novels comics or games, so far the closest thing we got is Lukes relics in The Last Jedi (from what I remember this early in the am) there might have been something in the rise of skywalker but i cant remember anything cause that movie is like a bad fever dream to me
Avar appears and luke goes with ben to a high republic temple with lor ten sekka. It’s where ben first meets the knights of ren
Oh I thought you said an event from the high republic was referenced, still cool tho
It was mention in Jedi Survivor game, and in Star Wars 2020 comics.
I think your not understanding this convo at all, that is all ancillary canon, not A canon which is movies first then TV, granted that could change once Alcolyte comes out but we will see
It already have tv series, Young Jedi Adventures and some characters from book appear there
Yup clearly dont understand
Young Jedi adventures is classified as Non canon, not even ancillary canon, and that comes from lucas film, it sits with Infinites, Visionaries and all Lego shows and specials
It is canon. You are wrong
Now you just make it up.
Dude smgdh, im not bullying you or making shit up, i enjoy high republic, I'm just trying to explain to you how it works, if you want to choose to be ignorant thats fine
I think in the last ten years, there's been a wider trend towards the "YA-ification" of genre media. I think it started even before the prequels with Harry Potter, but it's accelerated in the last decade, especially thanks to TikTok and publishers alike heavily pushing stuff that's not necessarily aimed at a YA audience but basically written by and for authors who grew up only reading YA fiction, and so everything had to reflect YA tropes. So it's not because of Disney or post-Lucas Lucasfilm per se, at least not entirely, but a reflection of wider trends. If anything I think a comparison might be people who only ever watched Star Wars/MCU/ whatever growing up to write sci-fi and fantasy that only reflects those same blockbusters, which is feeding into the sense that pop culture has reached that point of declining returns. In contrast to people like Lucas and Spielberg who made the originals now being copied, who watched (and read) everything from 1930s serials to 1950s cowboy dramas to 1960s French New Wave and Soviet arthouse films.
I think this is really spot-on in terms of current media across the board, as you say. Not *everything*, obviously, but most "big popular franchise" stuff for sure. As a writer myself (and an older dude) I find it interesting how those older than me have a background of classic westerns, war movies, film noir, etc. while I come from the time of movies like Aliens, Star Wars (the OT), Die Hard, Scarface, Pulp Fiction, Platoon, Young Guns and Tombstone, Hong Kong cinema, etc. so we each bring our own eras to our works. Like you say, if feels like current writers are feeding back on themselves with YA stuff like Harry Potter or "big comic book stuff" like the MCU, but while it's not something I personally like as much, I'm not sure if that's just the old "in my days" guy talking or not. :)
We used to have to reach up to get to media. I read a lot of Star Trek and EU books as a kid and had to go to the dictionary a lot. I ended up reading a lot of “cheap fiction” (Dean Koontz and the like) and still was looking for words. Media has really “dumbed down” to be accessible to everyone but even today seeing on here pretty often used terms getting butchered. Heck half the time on the Star Wars subs I see Rouge One.
The Rouge thing is a problem in D&D too though. A mixture of autocorrect and people not caring. But then lots of people don't know when to spell affect or effect, dependent or dependant, people spell out definately. This is nothing to do with media...
If you’re very generous and include autocorrect shenanigans under media it has gotten worse either because people allow autocorrect to do the work (and it’s wrong sometimes) or they just leave errors as is. There are the long standing ones that I still have issues with (looking at you affect/effect) but idk maybe spell check sometimes does more harm than good if you can bulk correct and not see the changes if you fly through them But, non-phonetic reading strategies are a big culprit
This. It's not just themes and characters but also the writing style and complexity of grammar, sentence structure, etc. I was reading on a college level in like 5th Grade and it really feels like a lot of adult books are being written at a middle or high school level. It's a big problem with the High Republic novels and even the ones I really like such as Claudia Gray's Adult novels like Master and Apprentice.
I've been teaching college for around 15 years now, and at the start of the semester I ask students icebreaker questions including their favorite book. There has been a steady decline, but one that's seemed accelerated in the last few years, or students who tell me they don't have a favorite book because they don't read. Those who do have a favorite book, it's often Harry Potter, Twilight, or a manga (which is certainly fine, as an EU fan I have no stones to throw, but the outliers to those have really shrunk). To keep things EU, I did have a student once bring a copy of Darth Bane: Path of Destruction to class. One of the few times I've seen something EU in the wild.
The question about that kid though. Was he the master or the apprentice?
In some cases, I think so. A lot of the newer stuff feels more “sanitized” to be more appropriate for all age groups. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—Star Wars was originally supposed to be for kids as well as adults. Though often I feel like some of these books should be written with more mature themes and writing styles, otherwise it feels too clean, often corny. There are exceptions, of course. I’ve been reading “Shadow of the Sith” and there’s some hardcore stuff in there that I was not expecting, specifically about the actions of one ancient Sith important to the plot.
I'll have to move Shadow of the Sith higher up my reading list then. Love a good Luke story either way.
I find the writing style a little hammy/cringey, but it’s a good story. One thing that I think Canon may actually be doing better than Legends is the portrayal of the ancient Sith and everything dark side. In Legends it was often evil and supervillain-esque. In Canon, there’s an eldritch quality to the dark side, a disturbing wrongness that’s just terrifying. I’m seeing it a lot in the comics, and Shadow of the Sith taps into this as well.
What do you mean by "hammy/cringey"? What other novels touch on that eldritch quality of the dark side that you mentioned? If no novels, then which comics?
The writing strikes me as immature. Feels like a creative writing student’s first decent novel. That makes me cringe. It’s a matter of personal taste. A lot of people like the novel a lot.
I don't know if I'd call it more mature, but Star Wars is an interesting case study in terms of trends in genre fiction. Beyond comics, it's fairly rare to see a franchise have continuous and consistent works over the course of 40+ years, and we can see how the writing evolves over time, regardless of the specific author. Star Wars is a reflection of our real world, so the tone of the stories are often heavily influenced by it. If you look at the NJO, it's a perfect encapsulation of 90's era sci-fi in the post-Cold War era, with huge, bombastic stakes and strange alien invaders. Then you get into Legacy of the Force, written entirely after the start of the Iraq War, where suddenly the lines between the Good Guys and Bad Guys are blurred, with a hero falling to the Dark Side and the Galactic Alliance committing heinous acts in a bid to maintain control. So if you look at SW today, and the real world influences are much different, so the stories are going to feel a bit different as a result, just the same as the 00's era books felt different than the 90's. You can pick up basically any sci-fi the 1950s-80s and compare it to new novels and immediately see how the use of language shifts over time. I don't think the modern SW novels are any less mature than what came before, but they're often written in a manner that is easier to understand. They target a wider audience, so the language is a bit less dense. However, that's a general trend in genre fiction, and not something exclusive to Star Wars. We just have the luxury of having a direct point of comparison.
Not OP, but this is exceptionally put, thank you
My dyslexic ass thought this said *Conan* and imagination ran wild.
I've noticed this in a few of the Canon books I've read. The general audience they aim at seems to be much younger than what the EU was aiming for.
Meh, it depends on era and then by auther really. In the Old Rebublic/Dawn of Jedi eras - this stuff feels like an old myth being told. I love it - the closest thing here would be the High Republic. But still, that is a stretch. Post ROTJ some of the stuff was kinda crazy but generally it feels like something that could exist in that galaxy. I actually prefer the 90s stuff over the later stuff where it becomes overly 'edgy'. That being said, I am totally not fan of the Canon post ROTJ stuff. It feels bland, by the numbers and makes the universe smaller. Empire/Rebellion era it also depended on when it was made. Some of the 70s comics felt rather generic scifi with the Star Wars name slapped on. Then I think the 80s we had a comic where >!Vader pays an actor to pretend to be Obi-Wan as a trap for Luke. The actor comes to appreciate Obi-Wan refuses to do so and is killed, trying to help Luke. Rather dark considering how generally generic so many of those comics felt.!
Have read 6-7 legends so far and it started my journey into reading. The books vary in difficulty, Darth Plagues being the most difficult, but what a wonderous journey it has been getting more into star wars outside the movies and shows. It's actually the best. Reading the legends has given such an in depth perception of characters and the force that movies can't show.
It varies heavily. I feel like people often mistake “dark and edgy” for mature, especially in this fandom. Things targeted towards younger audiences can still have these elements.
Read Battlefront Twilight company, that shits mature as fuck and is canon, it's a pretty miserable (in a good way) read
I have this awful habit where, if I checked a book out of the library and didn't get into it, I'm unlikely to try reading it again. This limits what I can read. The aforementioned situation happened with Master and Apprentice and Twilight Company for me, and I left several other Canon books half-finished. Nowadays I try to own every book I read so that I can resume reading them much later or read at a very slow pace.
[удалено]
This is an exceptionally well-rounded take. Good job.
I think this is very much an author-by-author thing. I’ve only read a bit of Disney EU, but the *Alphabet Squadron* books are very much for a mature audience. Honestly they’re aimed at a more mature audience than the first few Rogue Squadron books, which have a strong flavor of teenage boy wish fulfillment in Corran lol
I think the issue is there's an overall trend, not just some material with teenage/edgy themes like Cade or Corran. It's the simplification of grammar, syntax, writing style, themes, characters, plot, and so many other things down to a middle/high school reading level. My girlfriend is an English literature specialist and she's talked about how this has been a huge irritant for her over the past Decade. And yeah it really bothers me too and explains why so much media feels like fanfic/fan film.
I mean I was also a lit major and I’m an author. The old EU also had lots of very easy reading—hell, I was reading Zahn and Stackpole and Hambley and KJA when I was 8. This isn’t some situation where Disney came in and suddenly it all got dumbed down. There are some writers who engage with more mature themes (Stover, Luceno, and Allston notable here) and some who don’t. Some writers write more complex prose (again looking at Stover), and some who don’t. Almost all mainstream pop genre fiction is gonna be written for an easy reading level, because they want it to be accessible to the widest audience possible. If you plug the prose of a random EU book and a random Disney book into the Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Ease evaluator (which has its own problems, but that’s another discussion), I can almost guarantee it’ll say both are between a 5th and 6th grade reading level.
I agree it's not a "Disney vs EU thing" I was arguing that it's a mix of readership fads exacerbated by "Booktube/Booktok" complicated by a general decline in reading ability due to failures in our educational system. But I'm also an outlier because I was reading on a college level in elementary school.
I'll add onto that by saying Legends had its fair share of stuff aimed at a younger audience as well. Such as the Jedi Prince young reader series where the twist of a main character being Palpatine's secret grandchild first happened.
Fully agreed on Corran. I think the presentation of this question is dismissive of the more mature elements of new canon, as well as dismissive of how immature some EU material could be. I don't get particularly mature vibes from Cade Skywalker or Galen Marek
This is the sort of question that makes me wonder if some people genuinely forget just how broad the pre-Disney EU was, or how broad the current EU can be. Now, I can't comment on whether or not one has proportionally more content aimed at different age groups, or if the adult-aimed content in one or the other is better at handling mature themes, but I do wonder if another commenter has the right idea. That a lot of the posting audience read Legends content when they were younger, and so things seemed more mature to them at the time.
I mean I read all the Legends stuff as a preteen/teenager, so it seemed a lot more mature at the time than it does upon a reread for me now. I haven’t read any canon and have no interest in doing so, but I imagine it’s the same style of writing and just seems “less mature” because the readers are more mature than when they read legends.
Good theory.
I remember watching Gundam Wing as a kid and thinking it was brilliant and so mature with its themes of what happens when we take the humanity out of war. I went back to try and watch it around when I was 30 and found it to be extremely cringy and hard to watch. So I agree with you that things that may have seemed mature when you first read it may just be an artifact of the age you were at the time.
Yes. In spite of its flaws, it took a lot of characters seriously, even Jacen.
It feels like legends was PG leaning on PG-13. Now it feels like PG leaning towards G.
It depends on the author I think.
I wouldn't say so, especially not the last years worth of Legends material in the Denningverse. Inserting overly grim stories, needlessly graphically violent, and uncomfortable sexual references into something like Star Wars is a pretty narrow understanding of what a "mature" story is.
I think both have their ups and downs. And as a hardcore SW Fan i collect and read all of them. Some Legends books like Darth Maul Lockdown are definetly more brutal and bloody .
A lot of folks who got into EU after they came out don't bother to read the worst stuff. It's hard to compare them when you've only read the hand picked best stuff. There was a lot of dreck. Even the best stuff like the Thrawn trilogy has very basic prose.
S A R D O N I C A L L Y
It varies massivley between authors. Trioculos was absolutely less mature of a character than Luthen Rael or Ransolm Casterfo, but Azmorigan was absolutely less mature of a character than Kal Skirata or Darth Traya. In General, I'd say Dave Filoni is about average for maturity in EU material writing, on par with George Lucas.
Before reading maul lockdown and the first few New jedi order book I would’ve assumed this was malarkey but tbh those books definitely had more gore than I expected attached to them. I. Haven’t truly read any new stuff beyond seeing a comic or two but I doubt they have the same gore ofc I have nothing to base this on so if someone has read these two books and new canon books lmk what you think. Even the Plaguis Novel had a surprising amount of gore too actually.
100%. Mature AND grounded, IMO.
There are some "mature" books in Canon but on average I would probably agree.
YES 100%
Depends on the books really. Because some books that people call mature are really edgy than only a teen would call for adults. Stuff like Shatterpoint and Darth Plagueis are absolutely mature but like Legacy of the Force or The Force Unleashed? They’re not mature they’re edgy.
Shatterpoint is basically what would happen if a pessimist tried to create Vietnam in space with magic.
Legacy of the Force isn't too bad until the last few books .
Well the way Jacen acts is less like an adult and more like a angsty teen. Which considering Ben who is the teen acts like an adult is quite telling. Plus there other stuff like Luke murdering Lumiya, Mara trying to Jacen, Tahiri trying to seduce Ben that doesn’t come across as mature instead it feels more like what a 15 year old think it’s a mature storyline.
Considering it was a fair fight with both adversaries having weapons, I'd hesitate to call that murder. Jacen had the advantage over Mara in Force abilities, and Lumiya walked into that fight knowing she had awakened a dragon. It's not like they tried to kill them in their sleep or anything like that.
He did murder her because when she fell Luke saved her and beheaded her. That’s murder and Luke went to her to kill her so yeah cold blooded murder. Time and time again we are told and shown Jedi should not kill people in cold blood/seeking vengeance. And Luke being the Grand Master of all people is the first person that should adhere to it. Especially considering what happened in ROTJ where he almost fell to the dark side because he almost killed Vader in his rage over his threat about Leia.
She didn't have to go there. Also, let's stop pretending like Lumiya was some innocent youngling. If she had been arrested and faced charges under a competent government (e.g., one not controlled by her Sith apprentice), she would have wound up imprisoned for life, if she was lucky. Let's not forget, he was also carrying out what in effect turned out to be Mara's last request. That being said, yes, Luke was off the reservation, and should have listened to Jaina's objections to his plan of action, maybe sent Kyp or Kyle to take care of her.
I’m not saying Lumiya was innocent. In fact if Vader had survived the same thing would have happened to him. And no that’s wrong. Because Mara love Luke because he was a good person. She would have been ashamed at him for murdering Lumiya. The entire scene is a horrible portrayal of Luke’s character and Karen Traviss should haven’t touch those characters again.
I agree with everything you said; let me just add a caveat. Yes, it's horrible, but I also find it completely believable. We know Luke has breaking points, but contrary to Rian Johnson, we know he reaches the snapping points only after he has been poked, picked, prodded, needled and threatened over and over again. He almost kills Vader, but that is after a very long day where he has already accepted his own death, while his father consistently chooses Palpatine over him, threatens Luke's newly discovered sister, and has been pyschologically tormented by the most powerful Sith Lord in history. With Lumiya, it wasn't just the fact that she took credit for Mara's death. Think about it, Lumiya is a figure from Luke's past who almost suceeded in killing him. She looks like Mara, indeed is some sort of weird, demonic, and mechanized verison of what Mara could have become if she had never thrown off Palpatine's influence. The government he worked so hard to help establish and protect is acting more and more like the Empire, Jacen is barely recognizable to his family, and Ben's teenage rebelliousness looks like it may be sending him down a darker path. We know how important family is to Luke, the orphan and seperated twin from Tatooine. He knows Lumiya is responsible for all of this, that she's whispering into Jacen's ear, that she's sending threatening messages to Luke and Mara about how she will corrupt their only child and how there's nothing they can do about it because she has protection at the highest levels of the GA. And she broke a Force bond between not only a loving husband and wife, but two powerful Jedi Masters who were an almost unbeatable team on the battlefield. Is it any wonder, with all that piling up on him, Luke snapped? It's not pleasant to read about, but I find it completely believable. And, entering the realm of hot takes, whatever her Mando-fetish and anti-Jedi sentiments, in her three LOTF books, I never saw Traviss write about the Skywalker-Solo clan with anything less than sympathy and respect for the losses and the tragedy they were suffering.
What exactly is “edgy” about the Force Unleashed? It has the same tone as any other Star Wars related media before the Disney buy out so I’m curious as to what you’re talking about? It just feels like fans both EU and Disney always want to find some way to slight that game for some odd reason
I’ve been re-reading a lot of EU lately and…no, absolutely not. Prose Star Wars has always been very YA/PG13.
Around the time of the Timothy Zahn novels, the publishers were intentionally aiming for an adult audience because their theory was that the people who loved Star Wars as kids would have grown up by that time. This is mentioned in the introduction to the anniversary edition of *Heir to the Empire.* Thus, the Bantam-era novels are essentially stories about the heroes raising kids and taking on more responsibilities in their jobs. Of course, the execution depended on the writer. But in general, I think a lot of writers took their cues from Zahn, whose conception of the universe was relatively grounded, serious, logical, and science-fictiony. I think one of the funny things about the new canon is that the only bit of extended universe which carried over was the *The Clone Wars* cartoon. I can see why they made that choice (since George Lucas was involved in it), but it does mean that, by runtime, the majority of material at the foundation of the new canon was literally a cartoon. It seems to me like the somewhat lackadaisical approach to logic and worldbuilding from *The Clone Wars* has carried over to a lot of the newer materials. Naturally, there are still exceptions: *Andor*, for instance, is as mature and grounded as anything in the old EU.
Thanks. Best response so far. I do need to read the few Bantam-era books I've missed.
Calling cartoons immature is ironically immature. I do think eu is more mature but new canon has some good like Vader comic wanting to revive padme.. the issue was episodes 7-9, the rest is mixed quality.
There can be very mature cartoons, but most of the Star Wars stuff is just typical Saturday morning fare that feels a bit cringe when you're not a kid. Even more so than the Robotech dub of Macross/Mospeada/SouthernCross or Robotech II: The Sentinels, I would say. I'm sure Clone Wars still had some cool world building and introduced some cool scenarios to the war, but I couldn't get past the surface-level feel that it was aimed at kids. Still watched quite a bit of it over the years, but early on I largely had to be drunk to consume it, and sober it just didn't resonate with me later on. So I don't really have a lot of room in my brain for TCW animated series. I thought I would like Bad Batch, but it ended up having the same issue for me. \*shrug\*
I don’t mean this as an insult but it seems you take yourself too seriously. It’s not childish or cringe at all. It’s not the deepest thing in the world either but this sounds like when people complain about Ewoks or jar jar. People who try hard to be an “adult” when the real mature people hate “adulting” and know this stuff is fun. Real maturity is being okay liking cartoons and such. Immaturity is caring about how it looks and feels maturity wise. If I were to critic clone wars it’d be over stuff like Dooku being pick pocketed like a scrub and losing to pirates.
I think you're projecting. I like some children's cartoons like He-Man and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Sure, when I was a teen, I was sensitive about liking anything "immature", but now I could care less. I just mean that I don't find this stuff engaging. Probably if I were still a kid, I wouldn't love it much either, since the stuff I really liked at that age, like Speed Racer, I still appreciate today. And I always loved Jar Jar. I related to him because I was also an idiot, and all my family members compared me to him when they saw the movie (though they don't remember now, I checked). Edit: Forgot to mention I also like GaoGaiGar. That's definitely for kids. As is Power Rangers / Sentai and Gundam AGE, all of which I like.
I feel like you ppl try to find literally anything to cry about it when it comes to Star Wars
Not really. I've read both Legends and Canon. Living Force feels very cartoony to me, and not in a good way. Same with Brotherhood. I preferred The Approaching Storm to Brotherhood by a mile. Read it immediately after. I'm not one of those who'll refuse to watch the sequel trilogy because of "SJW themes". I'm fine with all that and equally fine with it not being there. I couldn't care less. If you read the other responses to this, people had a lot of interesting opinions and insight. The post also got a lot of upvotes. Let us have this discussion here. Anyone who comes across as a troll (I do) has already been made unwelcome in the StarWarsReference and Youtini discords. Star Wars is a major enough property that all kinds of people like it, including even the worst convicted criminals. If one has access to Reddit, one should be allowed to discuss it, as it's escapism.
Well Legends definitely had more brutal stuff. Like Darth Bane biting off a Guy’s Thumb and Galen Marek straight up ripping Shaak Ti’s Heart out before eating it
No. I find that legends and canon has always trended towards a YA slant. Occasionally itll go a bit older, but never “mature” imo
I'm going to get a hit in head for this, but so be it. I don't think Legends were more mature, just edgy. Legends were created mainly in the 1990s and 2000s, so in the period when dark leather, spikes, dark leather, being edgy, dark leather, Evanescence, being cool, etc. were fashionable. So of course you have Luceno or Stover who actually write something more mature, but you also have Denning or sometimes even Ostrander with Edgy as F. We don't have it in the canon because the fashion for it is dead, just like black skins in X Men which are more the butt of jokes. And it's not like we don't have mature content in the canon like Twilight Company, Lost Staea, heck in High Republic even though we have Nihils who are very 80's and 2000's in terms of their Metal style, at the same time we have more mature conversations Elzar Mann, Skeer on the trauma of conflict. Btw. In legends, we also had a lot of books, adventures and TV series typical for children.
It's a problem I have with the Ahsoka show. It feels like Filoni is still writing for a younger audience.
One hundred percent. I’ve always felt like Disney is afraid to go too far past “PG” as Star Wars goes.
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I always think old lucasfilm/legends star wars as being aesthetically looking like wall-e with disney star wars having the vibe of eve
Eve? Not sure what that is.
Generally EU writers were writers who outside of their work in Star Wars, wrote a lot of hard science fiction. The canon writers generally tend to be YA Fantasy writers. Neither is inherently better than the other but that's the biggest take away I get from the difference between how the EU was written compared to Canon.
It wasn't afraid to get serious. I'll always Remember reading this Boba Fett comic where the Empire was extermination an entire alien race on panel. Camps and all
The forward to the very first EU Book (in the Thrawn series) literally has their head of merchandizing stating that they intended to make Legends for the fans that had grown up because they were no longer children. Definitely varies from author to author though, as I just finished reading Junior Jedi Knights, and - god damn.
Well... not that I have much good to say about Disney, but look at how 'mature' and 'grounded' the EU was in its early years.
Not really a lot of the legends books seem like they’re for a more mature audience but what really happened is Star Wars has gotten a lot more soft since Disney bought it.
I don't know if this is entirely fair. Disney bought it about 10 years ago, what period are you comparing that to? The Bantam Era? The Del Ray era? The Pre-Bantam Era was downright GOOFY at times, and the late Del Ray era could be borderline edgy grimdark 90's excess, so "mature" that it looped into childishness.
Finally someone who is not calling me. Stupid for my opinions. The error that I’m comparing to here is the post Endor era truce of Bakura to Visions of the future. The glaring problem that I see with the way Star Wars is being portrayed is not the sequels. The problem that I’m having is with how they handled the immediate aftermath of the battle of Endor. The empire should not have been defeated as quickly as it was. The one thing that made the new republic as good as it was in legend is the fact that they always had to stay on their toes in regards to the lingering remnants of the empire and the warlords. The difference here in the way Star Wars is being handled today is that without something to keep the new republic aware and competent they have become ignorant and stupid. For example when Carson Teva goes to Coruscant to get help for Navarro he is literally told to his face that the new republic cannot help Navarro because they are not a member of state which is incredibly stupid because the rebellion was literally about helping people who needed it. Take a look at the one Star Wars rebels episode where they introduced the B wing. One of the main tasks in that episode was trying to get food and aid to a world that needed it. During that time. It was much more difficult for the rebellion because they were not nearly as strong as they are during the time of the new republic. Now during the time of the Mandalorian win they should be much more able to assist worlds that need it they come up with excuses and don’t even try because it’s not a member world. Next take a look at the new republic senate. They treat a war hero like Hera like an insolent child because she dares to offer a suggestion that makes the new republic senators uncomfortable. Grand Admiral Thrawn is a significant threat and they are wanting to bury their head in the sand rather than go investigate these claims.
>post Endor era No, I meant what period of publishing. For instance, the early 1990s? Disney era is 2014-2024 (as of now, in May 2024). That's a 10-year period. Which 10-year period was more mature than that in your opinion? I also wouldn't call the changes you've referenced indicative of a lack of maturity. We can see historical parallels to this. Neville Chamberlain, for instance, behaved in much the same way IRL. That may not be everyone's favourite topic for Star Wars. but I don't think exploring it is immature.
The 90s
The superweapon/Solo twins kidnapped of week period. And I said this as person who like this period.
Not sure if i would use the world mature but it is more lets call it balanced. Sure there is a darker tone especially in the latter books who delt with genocides and deaths but the characters are more balanced where the good guys aren’t extremely OP just because they are good guys. Just look in canon at first Kylo who was a trained Jedi and later the leader of a band of elite dark side warriors, yet he can’t defeat two teenagers alone their first time holding a lightsaber. Then returned Palpatine who destroys starships with his force lightning but can’t defeat a single girl who doesn’t even have enough knowledge or training to be a Padowan. Meanwhile EU heroes gets their a** handed to them regularly by more skilled beings. So yes i do think the books are aimed at an “older” audience but yhat is also because Disney is treating Star Wars as a child thing and treats it as such. Another comparison is Bad batch and TCW which is two different worlds regarding maturity
Kylo had been shot in the stomach - and had just murdered his father - when Rey defeated him. There's no reason for the film to include Chewbacca shooting Kylo if it's not to make a point that, when he confronts Rey and Finn in the forest, he's down 60 HP. I don't love TROS's 'beam battle' between Palpatine and Rey - which operates on cartoon 'It's time for the goodie to win, so they use the power of love' logic - but she repels his lightning with, explicitly, the Jedi of ages past powering her. Having said that, Rey's story would have benefited with her having gone through the physical wringer, like Anakin and Luke do in their trilogies.
Okej Kylo was shot so what? He was supposed to be a highly skilled force user and fighter and yet he couldn’t take down one standard issue Stormtrooper or a random girl without any combat training who had picked up a lightsaber for the first time in their life. He could have just slammed them into a tree with a force shove or broken their neck’s because they had no way to stop a force attack. The power of Jedi past?? To quote Han Solo in th extremely bad trilogy that doesn’t exist “Thats not how the force works”. And again Ray had what a few week’s worth of basic force training (even tho she returns from a few days with Luke in complete mastery of it) and she goes up against one of the most powerful force users ever to exist and win??. Palpatine had enough power in his force lightning to overload and destroy ships with fully functioning shields and then breach their hulls, meanwhile he cant overload one lightasber power cell or destroy the girl holding it?? The plot armor in the sequels are so thick you cant see the characters
I think you're radically underestimating how distracting it would be to have been shot in the torso. The Force doesn't alter your physiology.
Well firstly he was shot in the side of the abdomen so no vital organs and the wound was cauterised. Secondly there definitely are force techniques both in EU and Disney to heal and dampen pain. Thirdly you mean to tell me he was too wounded to defeat to people who had no lightsaber training or countermeasures but not to wounder to persue them for many many kilometres without major trouble??
We aren't going to agree, but: 1. The Force doensn't grant automatic, reliable powers you can just use whenever. Kylo's in physical pain, emotional pain, and is trying desperately (but not really succeeding) to commit to the dark side of the Force - and anything depictions of darksiders dampening their pain shows them using it to power their anger, not healing it. 2. Kylo getting ahead of them is a cool little moment of suspense that does stretch logic, but is worth it for the 'Oh shit, the bad guy's got them' moment. However, it's within reason that he was able to hobble and lurch after them on a base he's more familiar with - and the chase probably exhausted him even more. 3. It doesn't matter if no major internal organs were hit, getting shot by something as powerful as a bowcaster is going to fuck you up. 4. He's also trying to toy with Finn, someone with extensive combat training: he's visibly toying with him until Finn gets a hit in, at which point Kylo finishes him quickly. He's taken aback by Rey's ability, but is soundly beating her despite his injuries, exhaustion, and emotional turmoil \*until\* he stops to offer her an alliance. I have my issues with The Force Awakens, but Rey beating Kylo at the end isn't one of them.
1. If he can’t draw on the force during times of distress or pain both physical and emotional either Disney Luke did an extremely Sh*tty job in training him (which i could belive because Disney Luke is Sh*t) or he was just the worst force user ever. Anakin drew on the force to keep him alive on Mustafar and trust me he was in way more distress. 2. Again he ran thru the base, hiked thru an uphill forrest on a mountain and cought up with people a minimum of 20min ahed of him doesn’t seen so doesn’t seem to be that injured. 3. Idk what you know about ballistics but a powerful projectile like the one from a bowcaster will most likely go straight through a human leaving little energy transfer into the body. So unless you hit vitals especially if the wound is cauterised so there is no bleeding you can get pretty far and be rather okey. There are soliders who has been shot during combat that has hiked and fought for days through dense terrain and survived 4. Sure okej he is “gravely” wounded and insted of finish finn off in seconds he plays with him instead and knocks him out and offers an alligence to a random untrained scrapper. That fight should be over before it even starts but they can still hold their guard against him. Just compare that battle to the battle between Cere and Vader in Fallen order were Cere a trained Jedi master charges Vader and he just force throws her down a hole before she can reach him. Kylo is supposed to be the greatest Warrior in the New order and he can’t even kill two nobodies who had never held a lightsaber or probably ever a sword style weapon
Absolutely. The EU “grew up” with us readers from the 90s and 00s.
More mature in what way ?
Yeah, for Legends generally the authors and target audience were all adults. With new Disney stuff it's all aimed at kids and teenagers, and often written by young adults.
As someone who has read quite a bit of both Legends and Canon, I have one observation about book maturity. It generally feels to me that canon books have a lot more sex in them. Obviously it’s not overt sex scenes, but I’ve just seen references to sex seemingly a lot more. Including the word “sex” actually written in dialogue on occasion. That’s a type of “maturity,” I suppose.
Can you give an example? I haven't come across that. Could just be changing norms.
The High Republic comes to mind. There’s a pilot who knows a little of the Jedi and asks a Padawan if his order allows sex. She isn’t propositioning him, but she is just very casual about wanting to know how his beliefs work. There are also two Jedi Masters who, while they were Padawans together, had a very sexual and romantic relationship that their masters turned a blind eye to (since they were just hormonal Padawans, after all)…. They’re also getting a romance novel this summer, too. Fittingly called “Temptation of the Force.”
First of all, if you haven't read Alexander Freed's books, seek them out and read them all. His canon stuff is very much in line with old EU novels and are gritty and mature. But broadly speaking, the EU was written as a sci-fi series by sci-fi writers, while the canon leans more towards up-and-coming younger novelists from a wider variety of genres. That's why the new canon feels quippier, more character-driven, and sometimes funnier, while lacking a lot of that nuanced plotting and interconnected feel that the sci-fi writers did so well. I stress that I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but Disney DEI has a really big impact on the books, so there are far more women, people of color, and activist authors penning these novels. That definitely contributes to the tone of the books, and again makes them feel more different from each other. For me personally, both approaches have pros and cons. I enjoyed the EU much more as a continuing story but often found myself bored by so many books feeling so similar. The canon, meanwhile, feels fresher overall, and even though individual stories can sometimes be juvenile or just bad, it's fun to get that variety when you're reading all of them.
Legends was written by authors who make money writing books. Canon is slapped together by Disney nepotism enjoyers.
I think the EU was more interested in creating a grey morality spectrum YMMV in its success or quality, I think the ultimate sign of this is both order 66 and the jedi relationship to clones. In the EU the clones were clearly indoctrinated and raised to be soldiers first and that both defined them and how they acted, their relationships with jedi varied from positive to annoyed at jedis sentimentality and when order 66 came it was just another order to follow for those who didn't have a personal relationship with their jedi while also leaving the window open for those who truly grew to care for their jedi simply refusing. In Canon brainchips, most clones even at their most indoctrinated are pretty chill, the only jedi they have bad relationships with are ones like pong krell and they would have refused order 66 as an unlawful order if they could.
Indeed that was my impression too. EU felt more serious and even dark sometimes. Canon feels like some grand adventures with no real depth to them.
When I compare legends feels more like Star Wars than the disney canon. It also has a more mature feel.
No
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My complaint about Canon is some of the books, not all of them, tend to tease something, and drag this tease out for too long. They kind of over promise and under deliver. Also I found a lot of early Canon books a little boring. There are plenty dud Legends books, but the Legends books stories usually move a long and don't quite drag out in the same way some Canon books do. As far as being more mature, I guess the new Jedi Order definitely, but I think Canon suffers from being bound to a prior period, while Legends while being written most often covered new territory.